Direct Modification in Japanese

要旨

Sproat and Shih (1991) characterize Japanese as a language that uses indirect modification for adnominal adjectives, on the basis of the observation that adjectival ordering is free, as in (1).In contrast, direct modification is exemplified by prenominal adjectives in English, which exhibit rigid ordering, as in (2).Building on a long history of research on adjectival ordering summarized in Sproat and Shih 1991 and incorporating further data, Scott (2002) proposes the following hierarchy of attributive adjectives, which characterizes direct modification structure:The contrast in (2) is attributed to the relative height of size and shape adjectives in the hierarchy. The hierarchy is encoded as the layer of functional heads, shown schematically in (4), that host the relevant class of adjectives in their specifier, as proposed by Cinque (1994).Under this proposal, there is a functional head corresponding to each adjectival class. See Aljović 2010 for evidence concerning the morphological realization of these functional heads.Direct modification is to be distinguished from indirect modification in other respects as well. Sproat and Shih (1991) observe that direct modifiers are closer to the head noun than indirect modifiers: they point to the contrast in (5) in Mandarin, where indirect modifiers are marked by de while direct modifiers occur without it.The indirect modifier status of de-marked phrases can be seen from the free ordering in (6).Bare modifiers, on the other hand, exhibit rigid ordering as in (7).Thus, direct modifiers are doubly hierarchical, within their own category as well as vis-à-vis indirect modification.Furthermore, relative clauses cannot be used as direct modifiers, as shown by the fact that a relative clause cannot appear in prenominal position in English.In this squib, I will show that direct modification structure is found in Japanese as well, giving rise to rigid ordering of some classes of modifiers, and furthermore that nouns as well as adjectives can participate in direct modification.What concerns us in the discussion of Japanese is the portion of (3) having to do with nationality/origin and material. The relative height of this portion of the hierarchy vis-à-vis other types of adjectives in English is illustrated in (8) and (9).When we turn to Japanese, the first thing to note is that the class of adjectives that express nationality/origin and material is absent. Instead, nouns are used as modifiers, as shown in (10).The crucial evidence for the nominal nature is the presence of no attached to the modifier noun (Kitagawa and Ross 1982, Nishiyama 1999).1 Genuine adjectives do not use no, as illustrated in (11). See also (1) above.Note also that adjectives of nationality/origin and material are denominal in English.Let me also point out that it is not the case that Japanese lacks denominal adjectives altogether. There are suffixes like -ppoi that create adjectives out of nouns, as illustrated in (12).The nonnominal status of such forms is shown by the absence of no in modification structures, as in (13).Thus, it is an important characteristic of Japanese that denominal adjectives of nationality/origin and material do not exist.Now we are ready to examine the ordering restriction on attributive modifiers in Japanese. Note the following contrast:The preferred position of size adjectives is higher than the positions of modifiers expressing nationality/origin or material. In evaluating the contrast, it is important to avoid inserting a pause after the modifiers. (14a) and (15a) are acceptable without a pause. (14b) and (15b), judged ?? without pauses, become perfectly acceptable if the speaker pauses after the no-marked modifier. In that case, a wooden bridge is contrasted with, say, a steel bridge in (14b). Similar remarks apply to (15b). As noted by Scott (2002), focused adjectives can be preposed to a designated higher position within DP in English through phrasal focus movement (pace Cinque 2010:59). I

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